'My husband,' she said, 'has prepared a little surprise for us this evening. I say for us, because I have not seen what he has to show—since it came back from the frame-maker.'
'It is a picture, then?'
'A picture in a new style. He has abandoned for a time his coast and sea-shore studies. This is in quite a new style. I think—I hope—that it will be liked as well as his old.'
'He is indeed a wonderful man!'
'Is he not?' She laughed—a low and musical—a contented and a happy laugh. 'Is he not? You never know what Alec may be going to do next.'
Mrs. Feilding's Sundays have already become a great success: such a success as a woman of the world may desire, and a clever woman can achieve. There is once more, as she says proudly, a salon in London. If it does not quite take the lead that she pretends in Art and Letters, it is always full. Men who go there once, go again: they find the kind of entertainment that they like: plenty of people for talk, to begin with. Then, every man is made, by the hostess, to feel that his own position in the literary and artistic world is above even his own estimate: that is soothing: in fact, the note of the salon is appreciation—not mutual admiration, as the envious do enviously affirm. Moreover, everybody in the salon has done something—perhaps not much, but something. And then the place is one where the talk is delightfully free, almost as free as in a club smoking-room. Every evening, again, there is some kind of entertainment, but not too much, because the salon has to keep up its reputation for conversation, and music destroys conversation. 'Let us,' said Mrs. Feilding, 'revive the dead art of conversation. Let the men in this room make their reputation as they did a hundred years ago, for brilliant talk.' I have not heard that Mrs. Feilding has yet developed a talker like the mighty men of old: perhaps one will come along later: those, however, who have looked into the subject with an ambition in that line, and have ascertained the nature of the epigrams, repartees, retorts, quips, jokes, and personal observations attributed to Messrs. Douglas Jerrold and his brilliant circle are doubtful of reviving that Art except in a modified and a greatly chastened, even an effeminate form.
The entertainments provided by Mrs. Feilding consisted of a little music or a little singing—always by a young and little-known professional: there was generally something in the fashion—young lady with a banjo or a tum-tum, or anything which was popular: young gentleman to whistle: young actor or actress to give a character sketch: sometimes a picture sent in for private exhibition: sometimes a little poem printed for the evening and handed about—one never knew what would be done.
But always the hostess would be gracious, winning, caressing, smiling, and talking incessantly: always she would be gliding about the room, making her friends talk: the happy wife of the most accomplished and most versatile man in London. And always that illustrious genius himself, calm and grave, taking Art seriously, laying down with authority the opinion that should be held to a circle who surrounded him. The circle consisted chiefly of women and of young men. Older men, with that reluctance to listen to the voice of Authority which distinguishes many after thirty, held aloof and talked with each other. 'Alec Feilding,' said one of them, expressing the general opinion, 'may be a mighty clever fellow, but he talks like a dull book. You've heard it all before. And you've heard it better put. It's wonderful that such a clever dog should be such a dull dog.'
They came, however, in spite of the dulness: the wife would have carried off a hundred dull dogs.
As in certain earlier and better-known circles, the men greatly outnumbered the women. 'I am not in love with my own sex,' said Mrs. Feilding, quite openly. 'I prefer the society of men.' But some women came of their own accord, and some were brought by their fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers. No one could say that ladies kept away from Mrs. Feilding's Sunday evenings.